News on the Bombay attacks is breaking fast on Twitter with hundreds of people using the site to update others with first-hand accounts of the carnage.

The website has a stream of comments on the attacks which is being updated by the second, often by eye-witnesses and people in the city. Although the chatter cannot be verified immediately and often reflects the chaos on the streets, it is becoming the fastest source of information for those seeking unfiltered news from the scene.

But we simply have to be smarter than this:

In the past hour, people using Twitter reported that bombings and attacks were continuing, but none of these could be confirmed. Others gave details on different locations in which hostages were being held.

And this morning, Twitter users said that Indian authorities was asking users to stop updating the site for security reasons.

One person wrote: "Police reckon tweeters giving away strategic info to terrorists via Twitter".

Another link:

I can't stress enough: people can and will use these devices and apps in a terrorist attack, so it is imperative that officials start telling us what kind of information would be relevant from Twitter, Flickr, etc. (and, BTW, what shouldn't be spread: one Twitter user in Mumbai tweeted me that people were sending the exact location of people still in the hotels, and could tip off the terrorists) and that they begin to monitor these networks in disasters, terrorist attacks, etc.

This fear is exactly backwards. During a terrorist attack -- during any crisis situation, actually -- the one thing people can do is exchange information. It helps people, calms people, and actually reduces the thing the terrorists are trying to achieve: terror. Yes, there are specific movie-plot scenarios where certain public pronouncements might help the terrorists, but those are rare. I would much rather err on the side of more information, more openness, and more communication.

• Low-tech is very effective. Movie-plot threats -- terrorists with crop dusters, terrorists with biological agents, terrorists targeting our water supplies -- might be what people worry about, but a bunch of trained (we don't really know yet what sort of training they had, but it's clear that they had some) men with guns and grenades is all they needed.

• At the same time, the attacks were surprisingly ineffective. I can't find exact numbers, but it seems there were about 18 terrorists. The latest toll is 195 dead, 235 wounded. That's 11 dead, 13 wounded, per terrorist. As horrible as the reality is, that's much less than you might have thought if you imagined the movie in your head. Reality is different from the movies.

• Even so, terrorism is rare. If a bunch of men with guns and grenades is all they really need, then why isn't this sort of terrorism more common? Why not in the U.S., where it's easy to get hold of weapons? It's because terrorism is very, very rare.

• Specific countermeasures don't help against these attacks. None of the high-priced countermeasures that defend against specific tactics and specific targets made, or would have made, any difference: photo ID checks, confiscating liquids at airports, fingerprinting foreigners at the border, bag screening on public transportation, anything. Evenmetal detectors and threat warnings didn't do any good:

  "If I look at what we had, which all of us complained about, it could not have stopped what took place," he told CNN. "It's ironic that we did have such a warning, and we did have some measures."

  He said people were told to park away from the entrance and had to go through a metal detector. But he said the attackers came through a back entrance.

  "They knew what they were doing, and they did not go through the front. All of our arrangements are in the front," he said.

If there's any lesson in these attacks, it's not to focus too much on the specifics of the attacks. Of course, that's not the way we're programmed to think. We respond to stories and not analysis. I don't mean to be sympathetic; this tendency is human and these deaths are really tragic. But eighteen armed people intent on killing lots of innocents will be able to do just that, and last-line-of-defense countermeasures won't be able to stop them. Intelligence, investigation, and emergency response. We have to find and stop the terrorists before they attack, and deal with the aftermath of the attacks we don't stop. There really is no other way, and I hope that we don't let the tragedy lead us into unwise decisions about how to deal with terrorism.

1. What's a 'SAN'?
2. What's a 'LUN' on a Fiberchannel SAN?
3. What are the differences between iSCSI, NAS and Fiberchannel SANs?
4. How does data de-duplication work?
5. What are the different types of 'stores' supported by Microsoft Exchange?

When I park my car in the garage, I lock it. Why? Well, although I would hate for someone to steal my snow shovel and hockey sticks, my car is much more valuable to me. Security is about managing risk, specifically protecting valuable assets like my car. I have a higher level of protection on my car than on my garage. In dollar terms, the contents of my garage are orders of magnitude less valuable than my car. I could spend a lot of money fortifying my garage, and that would add some security to my car while it is parked there, but it is not a cost-effective investment. First, my car is the asset of value, and second the garage - no matter how well protected it is - doesn't move. 

Car manufacturers know this, insurance companies know this, consumers know this. Even media publishers know, yet in the common enterprise, programmers and architects seem to roam in ignorance. Your average download of a Michael Bolton song carries a far higher level of security than valuable user data, like passwords, social security numbers, and credit card details. Why do we keep protecting critical data with point-to-point security solutions (like SSL) that protect the transmission channel, but leave the valuable assets being transported wide open everywhere else? This is a critical question that needs to be answered in order to successfully add an effective layer of security to an SOA.

In seriousness, it's hard to prevent ballot stuffing in online polls.